Adalah: Supreme Court majority forces first Palestinian leader out of Knesset race since enactment of disqualification law in 1985

During yesterday’s hearing before a nine-justice panel, Supreme Court President Isaac Amit announced that a majority of justices supported approving the disqualification of Balad/Tajammu’ chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh from the October 2026 Knesset elections. The panel was hearing cases concerning the Central Elections Committee’s decisions to disqualify Arab parties and their candidates: the United Arab List, the Joint List, MK Ofer Cassif, and Abu Shehadeh. President Amit proposed, with the judicial panel’s agreement, that Abu Shehadeh withdraw from the elections, allowing the court to avoid issuing a formal ruling on the matter. Adalah’s legal team represented the parties and individual candidates before the court.

Abu Shehadeh has since submitted a response to the court announcing that he will withdraw his candidacy to avoid a Supreme Court ruling that could set a dangerous legal precedent with grave consequences for the already limited space for Palestinian political participation in the Knesset. 

The case against Abu Shehadeh rests primarily on a single analytical article he published on 8 October 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, in which he sought to examine their political context and which contains no call for violence. As Adalah’s General Director Dr. Hassan Jabareen argued before the court, the only call to action made in the article is for a political solution. Abu Shehadeh acknowledged before the court that it was a mistake to publish the article in the immediate aftermath of 7 October. Dr. Jabareen drew a distinction between what is objectionable or insensitive and what is unlawful, and argued that since the article in questions contains no call for or support of violence or terrorism, there is no basis for disqualification under the law and related Supreme Court case law. He further stressed that disqualifications are intended to prevent a genuine danger to the state, and that no one familiar with Abu Shehadeh and his political work could imagine his presence in the Knesset endangering anyone. He urged the court to weigh Abu Shehadeh’s article against his lifelong public and political work, as well as dozens of other public statements he made that clearly indicate his commitment to a future based on peace and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. Despite these arguments, the court indicated that a majority of justices were inclined to uphold the Central Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify him from the upcoming Knesset elections.

In response to the court's move, Adalah stated: “A Palestinian leader has been forced out of the Israeli Knesset elections after the Supreme Court made clear that it would disqualify him. For the first time since Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset was enacted in 1985, the court has effectively decided to bar a Palestinian leader, a citizen of Israel, from standing for election to the Knesset. There is no legal basis for this. None of the evidence presented against Abu Shehadeh contains any call for violence. On the contrary, his decades of public and political work as a human rights activist, Knesset member and party leader demonstrate his consistent and unequivocal opposition to violence of any kind, and his commitment to peace, justice and equality. Meanwhile, far-right Jewish lists, whose leaders have openly called for violence against Palestinians and made statements amounting to incitement to genocide, were cleared to run. By making clear that it would disqualify him, the Supreme Court endorsed two separate tracks for political participation: one for Jewish Israelis and another for Palestinians, whose leaders can be excluded from Knesset elections over a single published article. The position taken by the court undermines both the right of Palestinian citizens to stand for election and their right to political representation.”